The present invention relates to communications equipment, and, more particularly, to telephony-type services.
Today, it could be argued that providing Internet service is the fastest growing market in the United States and around the world. For most people, access to the Internet is provided via a "plain-old-telephone service" (POTS) connection to an "Internet service provider" (ISP). In this instance, one simply has to incorporate an analog modem into a personal computer, or equivalent, and have a customer account with the ISP. As such, at one level, accessing the Internet this way is as simple as dialing a telephone number associated with the ISP and "logging in." However, at another level, this type of Internet connection comprises disparately different parts.
For example, the POTS connection to the ISP is a PSTN "circuit-switched" "data call." However, at the ISP the Internet call becomes "packet-switched" as known in the art. In addition, the customer's analog modem is coupled to the "local-loop" plant of the local exchange carrier (LEC) of the public-switched-telephone-network (PSTN). This local-loop is typically a pair of wires, conventionally referred to as "tip/ring." Unfortunately, local-loop access has a basic limitation--namely bandwidth. Currently, analog modems only offer limited raw data rates, e.g., in the neighborhood of 33 kbps (thousands of bits per second). Since Internet applications typically require large amounts of data, e.g., for pictures, etc., and may also involve voice (audio) communications, accessing the Internet via a circuit-switched local-loop has performance problems.
In an attempt to improve performance, the industry is continuing to push data rates on the local-loop higher and higher as evidenced by the recently announced 56 kbps technology from such companies as Lucent Technologies Inc. and U.S. Robotics. Further, the industry is continuing to develop data compression schemes for audio communications such as ITU-T standards G.729, G.729 Annex A, or G.723. These compression schemes effectively decrease data rates needed to support audio transmission in "real-time" despite the low bandwidth of the local loop and any inherent delays in packet switching caused by the Internet. (It should be noted that the low bandwidth of the local-loop accentuates any such packet-switched delays.)
Nevertheless, the limitations of the local-loop for Internet access have created an opportunity for cable modem manufacturers to provide Internet access via a cable modem. As such, cable modem manufacturers are beginning to leverage off of the hybrid-fiber-coax (HFC) distribution plant that exists for cable-TV, to provide two-way cable modems capable of accessing the Internet at significantly higher data rates. In such an architecture, high-speed communications exists for both voice and data to the Internet.
As such, the deployment of an HFC plant with two-way cable modems is an alternative Internet access means for both voice and data. Unfortunately, we have realized that such an approach does not replace the local-loop for basic telephony service. For example, a LEC cannot direct a POTS voice telephone call to a cable modem endpoint. Indeed, consumers now have two different communications systems at their doorsteps. One--an HFC plant with two-way cable modems--is designed for packet-switched data connectivity to the Internet. The other--the local-loop--provides telephone service.